Random royal stories or facts

[JustAnotherWhinger]

A random fact about King Harald of Norway got me think about all the random/interesting/bizarre stories and facts about royals and thought a thread of them could be interesting.

Harald, who died today, was the first monarch to be born in Norway for over 600 years.
His grandfather, Prince Carl of Denmark, was selected to be the new King of Norway in 1905 (he became King Haakon VII.

Another Danish prince, George, was selected to be the King of Greece in 1863 and reigned until he was assassinated in 1914. He was Prince Philip’s grandfather.

Edinburgh gets a Christmas tree from Norway every year too.

It stands on The Mound

It's horrendously out of date now but Wikipedia used to have THE full line of succession for the UK royal family going into the 100s

I think the more recent ones they trim to the top 20

Right, that would now be into the Lascelles family?

https://www.britroyals.com/succession.asp
Here you go!

After the Lascelles it's the Fifes. Then King Haakon of Norway is 92nd.
He's the highest foreign monarch on there.

Some are ruled out because they're RC. Seems to be some of the Kents.

Thanks!
The wiki notes

In 2001, American genealogist William Addams Reitwiesner compiled a list of 4,973 living descendants of Electress Sophia of Hanover, in order of succession without omitting Roman Catholics.[3] When updated in January 2011, the list included 5,753.[4] The final person in both lists, number 4,973 and 5,753, was Karin Vogel (born 1973), a therapist from Rostock, Germany

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succession_to_the_British_throne

It was vast and went to something like 600 at least

Aaah, that's lovely.

I've been watching the coverage from Oslo all day and have learned so much about the connection between the British & Norwegian families

I already knew about the wartime connections between the two nations, particularly the 'Shetland Bus' secret operations

I've been wondering which member(s) of our Royal Family will go to Oslo for King Harald's funeral - I think Prince Charles represented HM The Queen at King Olav's

All the monarchs from James I onwards have descended from Mary.

The late queen Elizabeth ll was my 13th cousin

So who is your common ancestor?

The Useful Charts guy is very good on royal family trees plus his associated sub Reddit.

The Windsors are a cadet branch of a wider European dynasty (Not Hapsburg), and there is a hidden matrilineal lineage that has populated the monarchs of Europe

I know we've got as far back as Robert the Bruce but is still an ongoing process

Oh. I thought it was closer than that.

Sorry I thought you meant furthest back

Go far enough back and almost everyone is related to the royal family, mainly thanks to Edward I's 16 children!

Yes, how many descendants does he have?

If you want a genuinely tangled royal family tree you could look at the House of Saud.

I think they are still working off lines of succession based on male descendants of Ibn Saud who died about 100 years ago rather than straight patrilineal (IE eldest son of eldest son). And he had at least 20 wives and several dozen sons

They should have known. I was married in the same church in Moscow Road.

I had the registrar present in church and was legally married after the religious ceremony. My brother was also married at the same church and chose to have the legal ceremony the week before.

I don’t think you can have the legal ceremony after the religious ceremony. Maybe an exception was made but it’s not normally, as usually, you have to present the legal documents to the church.

The Duke of Kent’s son, the Earl of St Andrews, was ruled out for years after marrying a Catholic. He was put back in when the rules changed.

His two elder children (Inc his son who will be Duke of Kent after him) are ruled out as they are RC. His younger daughter is still in.

The current Duke’s younger son, Lord Nicholas, is also out as he converted. He was the first British royal to marry in the Vatican City. His children show up in some lines of succession lists, but they were all christened as catholics so are barred (some lists say only after confirmation, but from what I’ve read that’s incorrect and being baptised is enough).

It’s usually Sophie and Edward who go to foreign events. For a funeral like this I’d expect maybe William though, as this was a close-ish link and had he still been POW Charles would have went.

Interesting. I understand that Nicholas and Paola live apart, but won't ever divorce, of course

It was also interesting that their separation was kept very quiet until after his mother’s death.

I'm not going to derail the thread, but suffice to say, I don't like Nicholas Windsor one bit!

Catholics get divorced now you know!